The Senate unanimously passed a bill yesterday that criminalizes lynching and make it punishable by up to 30 years in prison:
Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., speaks on Feb. 26, 2020 about the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, which would designate lynching as a hate crime under federal law. Emmett Till, pictured at right, was a 14-year-old African-American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store.
The Senate unanimously passed a bill on Monday that criminalizes lynching and make it punishable by up to 30 years in prison. It sailed through the House of Representatives last month, and President Biden is expected to sign it. While it eased through both chambers of Congress this time with virtually no opposition, the path to passage took more than 100 years and 200 failed attempts.
"Lynching is a longstanding and uniquely American weapon of racial terror that has for decades been used to maintain the white hierarchy," Rush said in a statement Monday evening."Unanimous Senate passage of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act sends a clear and emphatic message that our nation will no longer ignore this shameful chapter of our history and that the full force of the U.S. federal government will always be brought to bear against those who commit this heinous act.
Unanimous consent in the Senate allows a bill to pass so long as there's no senator present to object. There was no roll call for the vote. "Tonight the Senate passed my anti-lynching legislation, taking a necessary and long-overdue step toward a more unified and just America," Sen. Tim Scott wrote on Twitter."After working on this issue for years, I am glad to have partnered with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to finally get this done.